Community-Based Healthcare Programs Sustainability Impact on the Sustainability of Host Organizations: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

Abstract

The sustainability of community-based programs represents a major focus of the literature on community-based interventions in the last few decades. However, without sustainable host organizations to effectively implement them, many are prone to failure. This paper analyzes the influence of the sustainability factors of healthcare community-based programs on the host organization’s sustainability. Based on a sample of 11 community-based healthcare programs and 401 respondents and using structural equation modeling, the study investigated if program specific, organization specific, and community specific factors are indeed measures of community-based programs’ sustainability, if social and economic dimensions are measures of host organization sustainability, and if the sustainability of the community-based program influences thee host organization’s sustainability. The results confirmed all three research hypothesis. The main contribution of the paper is to demonstrate a direct relationship between the sustainability of community-based programs and the overall sustainability of the organizations implementing them.